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The Desert Darkness Session 2
The second session of The Desert Darkness Preceeded by The Desert Darkness Session 1 Plot The session begins with the travelers leaving Gur Ranor with Sayyadina. She gives them three camels and tells them that her god told her in a dream that she would have to guide a group of adventurers to the shrine of Buragan. Nehem senses that she was not referring to Buragan as her deity, but the travelers begin their journey regardless. While everyone else is sleeping during one of their rests on the four-day trek, Rune, who is on watch, spots a large deer on the crest of a distant sand dune. As one of the moons shines out from behind a cloud, the deer's eyes glow brightly and the creature vanishes. Rune informs the rest of the group of this event and they come to the conclusion that the deer was a fey creature. After another degree's trek, the travelers reach the shrine of Buragan. It appears as a natural mesa with trees made entirely of glass standing at the entrance. Also there is a guard who had fallen asleep and some glass scorpions. When the travelers attempted to hail the guard, he awoke and commanded the scorpions to attack, but the party slay them with little difficulty. Inside the shrine, the travelers find the brutally mutilated bodies of two Thri-Kreen and two Goliaths. The furniture is scattered in disarray and a message is written in Primordial on the wall in blood which Nehem translates as "Forgive us." Darrak Silvertarn notices that the eye patch given to him by Andraemos is glowing, and when he puts it on ghostly apparitions of the spirits of the dead appear near their former bodies. The travelers speak with the spirits and learn that they were murdered by their fellow priests. They were attempting to lift the darkness when the ritual they were performing went horribly wrong and mutated them into sun-warped monstrosities. The spirits informed the travelers that the sun-warped beasts are in the back room along with a human and a lizardfolk who have moved into the shrine, and that there is a secret entrance at the rear of the shrine. The travelers decide to avenge the spirits and split up to trap the desecrators of the shrine. Bane Kelnozz and Claudiu Ionel sneak through the secret entrance and surprise the creatures. During the battle, Bane knocks out the lizardfolk, but the human escapes when he summons a flying drake. After the fight, the travelers interrogate the surviving lizardfolk with Gunnar doing most of the talking because he can speak Draconic. He tells the party that it is too late and that their shipment will reach Cante Dore via the lightning rail in two days. While this is going on a cloud forms over the shrine, and out from the cloud appears an elemental galleon with the name "The Silver Lining" branded upon it. Followed by The Desert Darkness Session 3